“Thadathagai: The Eternal Queen of Madurai”: A queen’s story

For the last 40–50 years, Urmila Sathyanarayan, a Bharatanatyam dancer, has participated in and performed throughout the Margazhi season. She and her organization, Natya Sankalpaa, devise new concepts and themes for their concerts each year. The next performance, Thadathagai – The Eternal Queen of Madurai, originated when she and her team were coming up with ideas for the 35th Margazhi Mahotsav and happened to come across Thadathagai, also known as the Queen of Madurai.

I was considering performing a play, but I wasn’t sure what kind of play to do. Then, one of my friends suggested that I play Meenakshi Kalyanam for 30 minutes. I thought it was a great concept and decided to extend it to two hours,” adds Urmila.

In 1996, Natya Sankalpaa was founded in Chennai’s Kilpauk Gardens. For Thadathagai, the institution’s around fifty-five pupils are performing. “We took our cue from Thiruvilayadal Puranam, wherein it is mentioned that Lord Madurai Meenakshy Amman’s original name was Thadathagai,” adds Urmila. Desamangayarkarasi and her pupil Aravind Kumar from Thiruvilayadal Puranam provided the performance’s lyrics, while Embar Kannan created the entrancing musical accompaniment.

As the team had begun on a tiny scale and never imagined that the performance would branch out and evolve into something that would make them proud, Urmila says that Thadathagai is like a dream come true. “Thadathagai is a fun and educational performance that I choreographed together with Saikripa, a Natya Sankalpaa faculty member. The whole team and the students joined after two months, and we have been working on this production for the last ten intense months,” she states.

According to Urmila, the team’s primary focus during curation was to make the choreography more approachable for the general public, enabling them to appreciate and comprehend it. Thadathagai, according to her, is not your typical Bharatanatyam performance meant for a select audience of dance enthusiasts. Because this performance is intended for all ages, it is much more amazing.

Natya Sankalpaa hopes that this performance would enable them to reach more people throughout this Margazhi season. “The crowd gave Thadathagai’s recent performance at Narada Gana Sabha in Mylapore great reviews. They really appreciated it and showed their gratitude as well,” Urmila says.